


A Helluva Town

by present_laughter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:17:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3072671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/present_laughter/pseuds/present_laughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Honey,” I say gently, cupping his cheek and turning his face to meet my gaze. I suppress another giggle. “You’re an actual superhero. You really think some jackass with a keg and a trust-fund is going take me away from you?” - a missing moment, Peter and Gwen face the future thanks to a college acceptance letter (between movies)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Helluva Town

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this ages ago but I just rediscovered it and decided why not post it...

“There you are!”

Peter’s voice sounding behind me pulls me from my snowy daydream and back to the courtyard at school, thawing under an early spring sun. He swings his backpack off his shoulder and drops it unceremoniously onto my lunch-table, where it slams home with unintentional spidey-strength and the loud smack of colliding textbooks. He straddles my bench and presses a kiss to my cheek, his jutting bangs ticking my forehead.

“I haven’t seen you all day,” he continues, tugging playfully on my ponytail.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I reply, tearing my eyes away from the source of my frustration to give him my best attempt at a cheery, unburdened smile. I note sadly that most days I have to tear my eyes off Peter in order to focus on something – well, basically anything – else, not the other way around.

I can tell from the way his eyebrows pull together that he’s not convinced by my smile, so I lean in and kiss him instead. Predictably distracted, he presses closer, arms sliding around me to tuck me securely against him. After about as much PDA as is lunchroom appropriate, I pull away. His arms tighten, lips trailing kisses across my cheek and down the side of my neck.

“Peter,” I grumble, squirming against the vice-like grip of spidey-strong arms.

“What?” he asks against my neck. I sit still. “Gwen?” his face resurfaces, eyes concerned. When he get’s a look at my face, he releases me immediately, but rubs one hand gently up my back.

“I’m sorry, I’m just distracted today,” I reply.

“Yeah? Whatcha thinking about?” he asks.

“Honestly? Dartmouth,” I pick up the letter from the table and wave it at him.

“You got in?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, I just got the letter this morning. You?”

“What? Oh, yeah, yeah.”

“You got in?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Thank god,” I sigh.

Peter swings his other leg over the bench to sit normally and picks up my acceptance letter.

“So you’re actually thinking about it?” he asks, brows furrowed.

“Sure. Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know…” Peter replies. He’s being cagey about something, I can tell, but although I wait in silence for him to continue he says nothing, only stares at the large green D in upper corner, chewing anxiously on his lower lip like I’ve noticed he does when he’s taking a test or writing a paper.

“Dartmouth’s a great school,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I know that,” he mutters.

There’s a real edge to his voice now, so I ask, “What’s your problem with Dartmouth anyway?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, glowering. “It’s really… cold.”

“This coming from the guy who begged me to walk home from school all winter because, and I quote, ‘the chill makes you know you’re alive.’”

“And they don’t even have a real mascot. They’re like the big green or something, I mean what’s up with that?”

“Because you and I spend so much time at sporting events,” I insert dryly. Peter is oblivious.

“And tons of liquored up frat-boys everywhere, hitting on you all the time.”

“That’s what this is about?” I ask, giggling.

“Why’re you laughing?” Peter grumbles, lip jutting forward in a slight pout that only makes me laugh harder. I cover my face with my hands, peeking out between my fingers at the glowering boy next to me. He scrubs a hand through his hair, a nervous tick, and glances over at me, teeth still worrying his lower lip. The intensity in his dark eyes sets my heart racing; even in a bad mood he is irresistible. How could this sweet, gorgeous boy think he has any competition?

“Honey,” I say gently, cupping his cheek and turning his face to meet my gaze. I suppress another giggle. “You’re an actual superhero. You really think some jackass with a keg and a trust-fund is going take me away from you?”

“I don’t know,” he mutters, avoiding my eyes.

“Really?” I ask, slightly ticked off now because I’m trying to be nice and he’s ruining it. “You think that little of me?”

“Gwen – “

“I just remembered, I have to go over the French reading before class,” I adlib, already shrugging my bag onto my shoulder, even as Peter reaches for my hip to pull me back down. I step away. “I’ll see you in English, Peter,” I tell him, unhappily recognizing the ice-queen tone I usually reserve for Flash. Peter notices it too, and shrinks back, hunching over the table while I march back inside with my French book (long finished) clutched to my chest and a bitter lump in my throat.

 

Peter usually walks me home after school on Thursdays, but I’m planning on blowing him off, saying something came up with the debate team. But when I get outside he’s already waiting for me, leaning against the wall with his hands shoved in his pockets and his skateboard tucked beneath one arm. I can see him searching the courtyard in small, uncertain glances, and when he doesn’t see me he slouches in disappointment. I feel warm affection curl in my stomach, tugging at my heart, so I walk straight past him, asking, “You coming?”

I hold my breath, sure for a moment that he won’t follow, but then I hear the familiar scrape of wheels on asphalt and his hand collides with mine, fingers tangling, as the skateboard kicks up beneath his other arm.

This is always the best part of my day, trying to match Peter’s loping, uneven gait, forever knocked this way and that by an affectionate shoulder bump or enthusiastic hand tug, caught in the current that is Peter Parker. Usually Peter is full of talk, anecdotes about Aunt May or stories about his spidey adventures, but today we head uptown in silence. I stare up at the budding branches on Fifth Avenue next to the park, and hold onto his hand for dear life. Spring is here. In just a few months, Peter and I will be graduating. The thought carries with it equal amounts of excitement and reluctance. For four years I couldn’t wait to get out of that stuffy school with its pathetic social hierarchy and strict structural curriculum. I’d been dreaming of college for as long as I could remember, for the freedom to study whatever I wanted. I rarely attended dances or parties or engaged in the social scene, choosing to spend all my free time in the library or at OsCorp. I’d made sure that when I left that school there would be absolutely nothing tying me to it. And then Peter came along – Peter with his stupid noble values and his stupid adorable smile, and swept me off my feet. More than once literally.

As I idly survey the congested crawl of the traffic, dotted with yellow cabs, a group of kids dash across the street and tumble, giggling, toward the newly green park. Suddenly, I am flooded with affection for New York City. The city that never sleeps, the city of dreams, the city so nice they named it twice. Why would I want to spend all year in a remote, coniferous ice cube when I live in the best city on earth? But then I glance over at Peter, who is grinning as he watches the kids push and shove their way down the sidewalk, and wonder how much of this feeling has to do with him.

“Peter?” I ask. It’s the first time since school that either of us has spoken, and he glances at me, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you want to go to Dartmouth?”

“Gwen…” he groans, hiding his face behind his free hand. “I don’t want to talk about Dartmouth again.”

“Ok fine, then what about Stanford? Do you want to go there?”

“No. You know I don’t like palm trees.”

I can’t help but crack a smile. “That’s right, you don’t.”

“Exactly,” he replies with a slight triumphant edge, like he’s already winning the argument, so I continue with greater momentum.

“You got into MIT, would you go there? Or Princeton or Carnegie Mellon?”

“I don’t know,” he grumbles, staring at his sneakers. “Gwen, come on.”

“MIT has the best undergraduate engineering program in the country,” I say, stating the obvious.

“Yeah I know that.”

“So why don’t you want to go there?”

“Because, I can’t leave!” Peter says finally. He stops walking, and looks down at me, his gaze earnest. “Gwen, I can’t leave New York.”

“You can’t leave?” I repeat skeptically.

“No, I can’t! I can’t abandon this city. I can’t abandon Spiderman.”

“Peter, this is bigger than Spiderman! This is about your future!”

“This city is my future!” He insists. “This city needs me!”

“Peter – “

“And don’t give me some line about keeping my ego in check, because you know it’s true. I do good.”

“You do,” I reply. “You do… do good.” I glance away, laughing a little despite myself. “You do a lot of good.”

Peter grins and takes my hand again, setting off down the sidewalk.

“You know who else has a great engineering program?” I ask after a few minutes’ silence.

“Who?”

“Columbia. That’s in New York, you know.”

“That it is,” Peter replies, and although I keep my eyes forward I can hear the smile in his voice.

“I got into Columbia,” I say nonchalantly.

“Did you now?”

“Uhuh.”

“That’s interesting. Because I got into Columbia, too,” he replies.

“Is that so?”

I glance up at him and we both start laughing.

“Gwen,” Peter says, taking my face in his hands. “You know just because I have to stay in New York doesn’t mean you do.”

I smile. “I know that.”

“I’m just saying, if you wanted to go to MIT or Princeton or… Dartmouth…” he inserts a dramatic eyeroll. “Then I would support that. One hundred percent,” he adds, fixing me with a serious gaze.

“I appreciate that, honey, I really do,” I reply. “But you don’t have a monopoly on loving this city.” I reach up on my tiptoes and press a gentle kiss to his lips. I close my eyes for a moment, forehead resting against his, before sliding my hand back into his and setting off down the sidewalk.

“The Met,” Peter says.

“What about it?”

“The MoMA,” he continues. “Broadway.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“I’m just making a list of things New York has that New Hampshire doesn’t,” Peter tells me with a sheepish grin. “Just, you know, for reference.” He looks forward again, brow furrowed in concentration. “The Museum of Natural History…. The Central Park Zoo. Murray’s Bagels on West 13th and Sixth. Chinese food.”

“I think they have Chinese food in New Hampshire,” I interrupt.

“Yeah but have you tasted it?”

“Have you?” I challenge, laughing.

“It tastes like garbage,” he states assertively. “At least, that’s what I hear.”

“Oh is that what you hear?” I laugh.

“I mean it, though,” he tells me again, fingers squeezing mine. He turns to face me while we wait for the walk sign. “No matter where you go, we’ll be ok.” He brushes the hair back from my face, dark eyes serious on mine. “We’ll be more than ok.”

“I know we will,” I tell him softly, leaning up for a gentle kiss before the light changes and the crowd pushes us out onto the crosswalk.

“I appreciate that, but I don’t think I’m going anywhere,” I tell him, staring up at the familiar buildings as they stretch toward the sky. “I don’t think I could leave New York even if I wanted to. Besides,” I add, nudging my shoulder against his. “This city may need you, but you need me.”

“That’s true,” he replies, bumping me back. “I really do.”


End file.
